


Dying Confessions (Dukeceit)

by DannyisDone



Series: Sanders Sides Oneshots [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crying, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Death, Deceit | Janus Sanders Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Heavy Angst, Hurt Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Hurt Deceit | Janus Sanders, Love Confessions, M/M, Protective Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Protective Deceit | Janus Sanders, Sad Ending, Swearing, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Dark Sides (Sanders Sides), Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, Unsympathetic Light Sides (Sanders Sides), Unsympathetic Sides (Sanders Sides), until..., ya know they protect each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyisDone/pseuds/DannyisDone
Summary: Janus and Remus are going to fade away, and they can accept that for themselves, truly. But the fact that the other is going to die as well, it's unfair.or alternativelyJanus and Remus can have a little love confession right before they both die, as a treat..+++Warnings: Character Death, Crying, Sickness, swearing, Unsympathetic Light Sides (It's ambiguous whether or not they know what is happening, so you can make that interpretation yourself), if i need more please let me know!
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: Sanders Sides Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145834
Comments: 18
Kudos: 82





	Dying Confessions (Dukeceit)

**Author's Note:**

> My three wips stared at me in utter disdain while I wrote this, but I really just wanted some good ol' fashion romantic Dukeceit with a side of hard core angst. Please heed the warnings on this!! If you don't think you can stomach janus or remus dying, please don't read! 
> 
> This is kind of different from my usual work, and I'll mostly stick to writing agere because that's what I've been doing as a coping mechanism, but I may occasionally pop out with stuff like this if people like it! let me know in the comments or yell at me for killing the boys idc <3 <3 <3

Janus looked at his hand once more, quite bored. As if the way it was practically transparent hadn’t made his heart jump in his throat just a few days ago. As if he hadn’t woken up to find Remus in a similar position. As if he hadn’t watched in horror all week as it became more and more clear that they were fading. 

In fact, Janus was quite over the whole ordeal at this point. Move it along. Get it over with. 

Neither of them had bothered to tell the Light Sides what was happening in their own personal hell below in the subconscious. It probably was their fault Janus and Remus were disappearing anyway. Something something ‘Morals’ and something something ‘Thomas is better off without them!’ Roman might have objected a bit, for the sake of his brother, but Janus was sure that argument died quicker than they were, if Roman’s lack of presence was any indication. 

“Damn, Jane. I can see right through you!” Remus said, barreling into the room, covered in purple and blue substances that Janus could only begin to guess at. He barely spared him a look before flicking his wrist, sending the mess off of Remus and into another room. The side...or perhaps former side...was noticing it was becoming more and more difficult to use magic. Suppose that made sense, but it made cleanups quite annoying. 

“That joke is even funnier today than it was yesterday,” Janus responded with no amusement in his voice. Remus frowned at the response and the loss of his carefully crafted mess, but walked over towards Janus. The snake barely looked up at the other, determined to keep his eyes focused on the floor that he was looking at through his hand. 

“It’s hardly a joke at this point.” Remus said, and it was almost dejected enough to make Janus look at the other. But he was afraid if he did, his emotions would betray him. He would look at Remus and see how pale he was, see how translucent his own skin was becoming. He might notice the dullness in his eyes that had replaced the radiance they once held. And despite his playful demeanor, his willingness to stay as positive as possible, Janus was afraid he would see how scared he knew Remus was, and he would feel that fear blossom in him like a weed and eat him alive. So he kept his eyesight firm on the ground. 

“Think you’ll make the same one tomorrow? Perhaps I’ll give a laugh then.” Janus said, going to stand up, but a firm hand stops him, settled on his chest where his heart was still beating but only just. And Janus could not help when he looked up at Remus’s face, and saw what he’s feared acknowledging. How sick and deathly Remus looks, mirroring his own fate. 

“I don’t think we have a tomorrow, Janus.” 

Despite the circumstances, what with death looming overhead like a pack of vultures, Janus admired the way his name sounds when Remus says it. It’s a rare thing, for Remus not to resort to pet names, a defense against a serious conversation typically. So when he hears it, it’s both a crushing boulder and a gentle caress. Because in any other circumstance he would drink it in like wine and indulge in how tenderly it was said, but now it just feels like it’s too late to enjoy it. 

He tried anyway. 

“Say my name again,” Janus whispered and Remus doesn’t even bother questioning why he wants to hear it. At this point, he’s tired of questions. He’s been questioning this whole thing, why it was fair, why it was happening to Janus, why why why. He was tired of it. So without thought, without seconding guessing, he would do whatever the other wanted, whether it had a rhyme of a reason or not. 

“Janus,” He whispered and doesn’t say anything when he’s suddenly being pulled down onto the other’s lap, the man wrapping his arms around Remus’s neck and inching him closer. For half a second the creative side wonders if they will kiss, but the thought dies immediately when Janus is suddenly collapsing into his neck. 

“Again.” It’s almost a plea. Remus would have made fun of him, if he wasn’t so fucking broken up about it all. 

“Janus.” It’s a loving and sad little whisper, and Remus starts to wonder if maybe the other is losing his mind. He’s slipping so fast into nonexistence that he doesn’t even know what he’s saying or doing. Remus can’t decide if he’s jealous that the other might go before he does, or really fucking terrified. Somewhere in the middle seems to suffice. 

But then Janus pulled away, and his face is soft, and Remus found it terribly ironic that the man held so much life in his eyes when on the verge of death. Quite fitting, for the guy who took great pride in confusing the fuck out of people. Now Remus really wanted to kiss him, and he wasn’t quite sure if that was an impulsive thought or his own brain starting to rot. 

“Are we about to do a dying love confession? Because that’s kind of hot, Jan.” Remus said with a small smirk that he did not feel, but when Janus chuckled, a sweet mix of honey and longing that Remus always craved the attention of, he relaxed just a bit. 

“Oh Remus, I do love you,” Janus murmured, and if Remus was a fraction of himself, he might have combusted into literal fireworks. That’s what his insides felt like, an explosion of feelings of love and ache and wistfulness, and wasn’t that just so fucking unfair that he couldn’t relish in that feeling longer, that he would die with a fire in his belly that he didn’t have the time to scream it for the world to know. He felt tears form in his eyes, those nasty traitors, and soon all of the joy and pain he was feeling was bubbling out of him in pathetic sobs. 

“I fucking love you too.” Remus cried. He wasn’t even scared of dying, he’d come to terms with that practically day one. He’d even tried to reach out to Roman, hoped beyond hope that his brother would pay the dying man one last visit, or in the very least say goodbye. But Roman had demanded to be left alone, said he didn’t care what silly shenanigans Remus had gotten himself into this time. And that had been enough for Remus to harden his heart and accept his fate. God, he didn’t care if he died. He was the mistake anyway. He was the great flaw that made Thomas “bad”. So why did Janus have to be brought down with him? (There he goes, questioning again…) 

Janus pulled Remus closer and hugged him loosely, hating the way that he knew if he hugged any tighter, he might literally go through the man. He pulled Remus into a loving kiss, despite the tears and snot Remus was producing, and Remus hungrily kissed back, quite literally aware that it may be the first and last one he ever gets. They are a mess of heat of love for just a brief moment, before suddenly Janus pulled away, hacking coughs overwhelming him as he struggled to catch his breath. The panic immediately settled into Remus like a brick in water, and he grabbed Janus’s arms hard. 

“No no no fuck that, don’t you dare die before me.” Remus wailed. Janus waved his hand dismissively before he begins coughing again. Remus watched in horror, wondering if this would be the last image he has of the love of his life. A creature who Remus had watched grow up to be so strong and poised, confident in nothing but himself and his own convictions, slowly choking to death on nothing but Remus’s kiss. But then Janus took a big gulp of air and finally seemed to come away from the spell. His eyes were tearful, though from the coughing fit or from emotion, Remus wasn’t quite sure. 

“I wasn’t dying, your mouth is just putrid.” Janus teased, but it’s a lie. Maybe he had been close to death just then, but Janus refused to die like that. If he was going out, this Mindscape better make it fucking worth his time. He made sure to cement that what he’s said was a lie by leaning forward and giving Remus another quick kiss, before they settled comfortably into one another. 

They stay like that for hours. TAt first they started cracking jokes with each other. They conversed about what Hell must be like for Sides, or wonder if they will be reincarnated as something more digestible for the Light Sides. Janus declared he’d come back as a sore tooth, and he’d make sure a shot of pain coursed through Thomas every time he lied, just out of spite. Remus decided if he did come back, he’d come back as a miserable wet dream that makes everyone uncomfortable. Janus laughed, and it was damn near the prettiest thing Remus had ever heard. 

When they both got a bit colder, huddling closer than they had ever been prior to today, they’d begun to whisper sweet nothings to one another, silent comforts that did nothing warm their bodies but made it just a bit easier to stay awake. It grew dark outside, though neither of them felt tired. They didn’t want to risk separating, in case this really was their last night. Remus slowly began caressing Janus’s scales, an action he never would have allowed before, but it’s calming and ticklish in a way that he hadn’t expected. He, in turn, ran his hands through Remus’s hair. They continued to whisper to one another, even when they both began to have coughing fits, even when the coldness was clearly coming from within them and not from the room. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” Janus confessed suddenly. He knew what it felt like to be left, to be abandoned. The thought of that makes tears finally begin to spill from Janus’s own eyes. Fuck not caring, at this point all he did was care. He cared so much. He didn’t want to leave Remus alone. He didn’t want the other to die without him. Janus didn’t care if he himself died alone, he had been preparing his heart for it one day. When Remus grew tired of him, when the beckoning call of being in the Subconscious became boring or unbearable. Janus had steeled himself for it, even if he loved Remus more than he could say he loved anything else in the world. More than Virgil, more than Thomas. Remus had been the one, he’d always been the one. And now they were going to die, and Janus couldn’t protect him from that. 

“It won’t be for long. Wherever we end up, I’ll find you.” Remus said, his sentence ending in a wet cough that Janus hardly reacts to, simply holds his breath, waiting to see if this will be the one that finally takes him. They had both been doing that for the past hour. When Remus took a shaky breath, Janus relaxed just a bit, always sort of grateful that Remus was still with him, always sort of wishing he would finally be released. 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, love.” Janus responded, peppering Remus’s face with soft kisses, over freckles he had never known were there, over the scars on his cheeks and chin, every little blemish that made him all the more special. 

“I don’t.” Remus said with a certainty that makes Janus believe him. Wherever they end up. Wherever a side goes when they die, or fade away, or whatever this ways, Remus was going to find him. And they could have a proper happily ever after, instead of this bullshit Shakespearean tragedy they were doomed into. A sharp hand suddenly grabbed at Janus’s shirt, startling him out of thought for a moment. 

“Fuck, I can’t see.” Remus whispered, his eyes a glossy white. Janus watched as he begins to cry. “Are you kidding me, you’re already killing me, gotta make me blind too?” Remus screeched at no one, not a soul cared about what happened in the dwellings of the Dark Sides. They would die, and perhaps their bodies would never be found. Remus sobs, and closed his eyes as Janus gently cradles his head, pulling him close and shushing him. 

“It’s alright Remus, everything will be okay,” Janus whispered, and Remus knows it’s a lie, but he plays along anyway. He’s always been a great actor. 

“I love you Janus. I love you I love you I love you…” Remus began to mumble it over and over again until the words are incoherent, but Janus felt them all the. He doesn’t say anything when Remus’s breathing gets slower, his words softer. He’s falling asleep, of course. That’s what he was doing. Janus rather fancied sleep himself at this point. 

“I love you too, Remus. Please find me.” He whispered and feels a careful nod against him. Janus closes his eyes, better to submit to the darkness himself before whatever force was killing him did it. He felt Remus relax in his arms. He must have fallen asleep. Janus pressed one more kiss to his temple, before allowing the quiet of the room to settle in him. Just as he begins to drift off, he swears he can hear a sharp gasp from somewhere in the room, but he’s much too tired to acknowledge it. Besides, he can hear Remus calling for him, and he’s never sounded so lovely. Janus smiles and follows after the voice, letting warmth envelop him as he gets closer and closer...


End file.
